Some critics have called A Place To Bury Strangers the "loudest band of New York City", and I believe it. I have heard as much from the two people I have personally spoken to who have seen them live. Both have commented on how loud it was, and that earplugs were essential. I have never seen them live. I had a chance to see them live in Phoenix this summer, but I declined the opportunity. The basement venue had no seating, and that is tough for a disabled gentleman such as myself. But I really wanted to go.
From what I hear, their live shows are an assault on the senses - long sessions of ear-bursting walls of sounds and broken instruments. Not just sonically, but visually. Their sets include little lighting beyond strobes, color patterns, and smoke machines (seizure trigger). I hear that, by the end of the show, you feel like you are going just a little insane.
Case in point - every year at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, the wholesome, vivacious, bubbly TV personality and chef, Rachel Ray, whose husband is a musician, hosts a free party where she serves her fare and invites musicians to play. I don't know who the marketing genius who scheduled A Place To Bury Strangers to play the Rachel Ray Party in 2011, but it was a beautiful mistake of epic proportions. You can watch it unfold on YouTube. The geriatric, middle class people sitting at the picnic tables to eat Rachel Ray's burgers, looking on in horror as the band, looking like they slept in some dirty alley, scratches out feedback on their instruments when, suddenly, frontman Oliver Ackermann steps off of the stage towards the audience and stand their like a god, guitar hanging from his shoulder, sneering at everyone. Then he grabs his amp while the music drones on and drags it offstage, stretching it as far as the chord will allow to get it closer to the uncomfortable audience, drenching them in more noise. Then bassist Dion Lunaden hurls his bass at the audience, never in any danger of hitting them, but dissolving the barrier even further between performer and audience. Just as quickly he takes up another bass and resumes playing, and Ackermann in turn also hurls his guitar contemptuously at the audience. It is hilarious.
Then, at the 2018 SXSW performance at Blackheart, the band sets up their equipment - not on the stage, but in the middle of the audience, much to the bewilderment of the audience. You can watch it here. This is just an example of how iconoclastic this band is, how they want to challenge the norms of rock performance and even the music itself.
As early as 2012, my friend Tim, one of my music gurus, tried to turn me onto this band. I only remember, because of Facebook reminded me that Tim had posted a link to m y page that went unnoticed. It wasn't until 2016 that I finally latched on. I should have listened to Tim. APTBS has since become a staple in my musical diet. But what do they sound like? A definitive fixture in New York's post-punk revival, they are a fuzzy mixture of shoegaze and noise rock. In the same song, they can be at once ethereal and yet assault your ear drums. Tim told me in 2012 that they were like "an amped up Jesus & Mary Chain". I would throw a liberal helping of Sonic Youth in there, along with a smattering of My Bloody Valentine. And yet their sound is their own - caustic, impressionistic, grating, an explosive heap of metalic pieces lashed together loosely with baling wire. Here is a brief overview of their releases.
"A Place To Bury Strangers" (2007) - Though released towards the end of the decade, APTBS has been around the better part of ten years. Their first album was mostly a collection of songs that had reverberated through the NYC in clubs and on various independently-released EPs. But it brought the sound of the band into the public spotlight, selling only a couple of thousand copies on the first couple of printings, but eventually winding up number 38 on Pitchfork's "The 50 Best Shoegaze Albums of All Time". There are some strong moments on here - "Missing You" with its gashing riffs and dreamy hook, "Don't Think Lover"'s harshness melting into sweetness. "To Fix the Gash In Your Head" is perhaps one of my favorite with its electronic hummingbird-heart beats paired with a wall of sound. The dirge-like "The Falling Sun". "Breathe" is a dead ringer for Jesus & Mary Chain. The dark and danceable "I Know I'll See You". "She Dies" is another favorite, exemplifying the strength of the band, going from somber and crestfallen swelling to a painful roar.
"Exploding Head" (2009) - Their sophomore release is perhaps one of their albums listen to the most, maybe because it is so catchy. The bendy, swirly guitars on "It Is Nothing" gives away to insistent distortion. "In Your Heart" is the primary single and shows how the band can throw together random noises that ultimately coalesce together to make an impressionistic portrait of a pleasant song. "Dead Beat" always reminded me of a foray into psychobilly worthy of The Cramps. "Keep Slipping Away" is the second single and perhaps the most radio-friendly song they've produced, but that doesn't keep it from being a great song. "Ego Death" continues the fixation with Jesus & Mary Chain, but only if they existed in the gravitational pull on the surface of Jupiter, much heavier, much darker. "Smile When You Smile" is a great song, one of their tunes with a Sonic Youth vibe, like one of Lee Renaldo's compositions. "Everything Always Goes Wrong" has a Joy Division vibe, with Ackermann doing his best deep-throated Ian Curtis, and Lunaden's bass heavy and thrumming in a complimentary imitation of Peter Hook. The title song, "Exploding Head", is one of my favorite - a gothed-up surf punk melody worthy of 45 Grave. "I Lived My Life To Stand In the Shadow of Your Heart" finishes out the album with a bang. How can a song be shoegaze and hardcore at the same time? I don't know, but APTBS accomplishes just this. I have seen the live versions of this song where the ending collapses into a jumble of compressed and improvised chaos.
"Onwards To The Wall" (2012) - This 5-song EP by the band is one of my favorite releases by any band of all time. "I Lost You" starts out the set with the band's dominant basslines, the guitair only there to scratch out atmosphere. Perhaps my most favorite songs by APTBS is "So Far Away". It's hard to say why this song stands out. It is wistful, almost nostalgic, with the guitars shadowing the vocals, the whole song set on dreamy reverb. "Onwards To The Wall" is another song with a Sonic Youth feel, but this time Kim Gordon, perhaps because of the unknown female accompanist on the song, or maybe like Sky Ferreira on "Blue Boredom" with DIIV. The music fades out and fades back up on "Nothing Will Surprise Me" with it's frenetic pace. A great release.
"Worship" (2012) - The band's third album starts by laying the foundation of pounding drums and thrashing crashes of guitar noise on "Alone" and immediately contrasts by going nearly muted and sensual on "You Are The One", one of my favorite tracks. But then they crank up the fuzz to eleven on "Mind Control", a song that works on so many levels because of its stroboscopic effects. "Worship" goes dense and murky again, paying homage again to J&MC. I am usually not a lyrics guy, especially when the words are muttered below the threshold of sound as Ackermann does, but the lyrics to "Fear" make me appreciate the song, clear for once and almost confessional. "Dissolved" is divided into two halves - the first smudgy, melty, slow and shoegazey like a plunge into Slowdive, and the second half is jerky and perky like something kraut rock, or like Beach Fossils or DIIV. The pounding beats of "Why I Can't Cry Anymore" are industrial and artificial. "Revenge" is like Deep Purple swallowed shards of glass. "And I'm Up" has hints of the Buzzcocks or the Feelies. The album plunges through the finish line with the aggressive "Leaving Tomorrow". Or in other words, this is a great, great album from start to finish.
"Transfixation" (2015) - This album is my least favorite of all of APTBS's albums. It's not terrible; it's still good, but it doesn't grab me like the others. It is much less shoegaze, and much more abstract, more Dada. Though the same grinding darkness is present, it has more of an jazz feel to it, more improvised. But in a way it works. This is art for the sake of art, as in the song "Deeper", which is like a dull knife scraping the bottom of a steel drum, droning on at a sludge-like pace. Definitely a WTF moment, but there is no arguing that this is art. "Straight"has some sharp bass riffs, but "Love High" is confused and disarrayed. But that is their intent - to keep you off-kilter. "Now It's Over" is one of my favorite tracks on the record, but only because it is so simple - bass and vocals. But don't worry - there is plenty of pandemonium on the rest of the album to make up for it, as demonstrated in the final track - "I Will Die" - where vocals, music, and samples are kneaded and pounded into one continuous pulp of lovely noise.
"Pinned" (2018) - On their fifth, and most recent, album, just released this summer, the band is back in form. They have fleshed out their sound. A lot of this is due to adding Lia Simon Braswell as a permanent drummer after a rotating lineup of drummers. Not only does she bring her feverish percussive abilities to the proverbial table, but her sharing of vocal duties adds a dimension to the band's sound that wasn't there before. "Never Coming Back", the principle single, shows that the band is as raw as ever - two notes on a bass backed by a kick drum, only the dual vocals bringing the song to a maddening pitch - a pop masterpiece. "Execution" reminds us of their penchant for dissonance. "There's Only One Of Us" is the second single, set to a skipping beat and a guitar effect that sounds like a bagpipe. Braswell and Ackermann seem to emote John Doe and Exene Cervenka. "Situations Change" is one of my favorites, the bass tamed and the guitars soaring to the front. It could be a Bauhaus song, Ackermann even sounding a bit like Peter Murphy. "To Tough Kill" unlaces into mayhem again with its two-step beat indemnified by Braswell's spooky vocals. "Frustrated Operator", another favorite, accentuates its post-punk flavor, sounding a bit like Killing Joke. There are a few songs like "I Know I've Done Bad Things" play up the electronica element. But the band is about taking whatever there is and creating sonic landscapes with it. "Keep Moving On" is so catchy that it makes it onto all of my playlists as of late.
I'm not going to just sit here and tell you how great this band blah blah blah. But I will say that they are one of my favorite acts of this decade. And I will make a prediction. In twenty years, no one will be talking about how much of an influence Cardi B or Migos were on them. They will be talking about how much of an influence bands like A Place To Bury Strangers were Mark my words...
When I see young new artists emerge, I am always curious to see what they will do next. If you have followed my blog over the years, then you will know that I have raved about Meg Myers from the beginning, for the better part of half a decade. I reviewed her first EPs and her first album. These were all phenomenal releases. The thing that set her apart from other young pop singer/ songwriters was the sheer raw passion she threw into her music, drawing comparisons to Alanis Morissette and Sinead O'Connor. I was curious to see how she would follow up her previous efforts. Would she maintain her artistic integrity? Or would she veer off into glitzy commercialism?
With her sophomore album, "Take Me To The Disco", released this summer, it turns out that we didn't have to worry. This album is not only just as good as her earlier music, it's better.
The best anectdote to illustrate the aura of this album is to realize that, in the interim between releases, Myers left her major label, Atlantic Records, for an indie label. Why? Because Atlantic was putting undo pressure on her to produce radio-friendly "hits". This pressure froze her creatively to the point that she was no longer able to write songs. So, she left the label, in what I would call a smart move, and was able to write music on her own terms. The first single was "Numb", and on it she sings:
"I hate the feeling of this weight upon my shoulders
Pushing the pressure down on me
If you force it, it won't come
I guess I'm feeling numb"
This song is a direct response to Atlantic's efforts to extract creativity from her, much in the same vein as Sara Bareilles's "Love Song". ("I'm not going to write you a love song 'cause you asked for it.")
Some critics have said that this new album is less Alanis Morissette and more Kate Bush, and I would agree with that assessment. This album is darker, grittier, and more atmospheric than her previous arrangements. And not just in terms of mood and ambiance, but musically. There are dreamy layers and orchestral interludes and piano. It's not that this album is no less angry, but more otherwordly, more meditative and reflective. Myers's secret weapon has always been her vocal abilities. Especially if you have seen live footage of her concerts, you will know that Myers throws her whole self into the deliverance of her vocals. It's not just singing; it's performance. Her whole body goes into expressing the lyrics, and it is totally unfeigned. You can see that she feels these songs with every delivery. And it shows on the album.
The album starts out with the title track, "Take Me To the Disco", with a piano intro reminiscent of Gary Jules's interpretation of "Mad World", but then ascends gently to a symphonic arrangement. The third track is one of my favorites - "Tourniquet". Myers emotes stark lyrics with clarity set to music that is at once somber and glistening. "Tear Me to Pieces" starts out as a guitar ballad and explodes into a caustic refutal of jilted love. Another favorite, "Jealous Sea", with its play on nautical terms, is a perfect example of Myer's sound. "The Death of Me" is a duet with a mysterious male singer. "I'm Not Sorry" seems to be a rebuttal to her 2015 single, "Sorry". And "Little Black Death" is one of my favorites with its Nine Inch Nails' inspired lashing electronic beat.
Really, the whole album is good, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to familiarize themselves with her work. Meg Myers has proven that she is an artist who is willing to stretch her abilities to define herself as a songwriter and a musician. A case in point is how she taught herself to play the bass for recent shows. She is willing to stretch herself beyond her limits. If only half of the pop artists out there cared as much about their craft.
Below are a couple of music videos, including "Jealous Sea", which was just released.
It was Christmas of 2007. One of my wives gave me the gift of CDs. One of them was "Our Love to Admire" by Interpol. I think she picked the CD because of the unusual cover, featuring stuffed animals in the pantomime of killing each other. I had heard of the band, but I knew nothing about them, save their hipster reputation. Little did I know that this would become one of my favorite and most-listened-to albums.
I remember the first time I put the CD in and listened to that first track, "Pioneer to the Falls". My initial reaction to Paul Banks's vocals was that he was a dead ringer for Brendan Perry from Dead Can Dance, with his smooth baritone. Then, no, they sounded like The Doors. But then it dawned on me. They sounded just like Joy Division.
"Our Love To Admire" became one of my most listened to albums of the last decade, along with Modest Mouse, Muse, Coldplay, and My Chemical Romance. From the brooding basslines and pounding beats of "The Heinrich Maneuver" and "Mammoth" to the serious and contemplative of "Pace Is the Trick" and "Who Do You Think?" to the dreamy atmospherics of "The Lighthouse", this album was one of my favorites.
Other than that, I never heard anything else by Interpol. I did download "Untitled" from their debut record, "Turn On the Bright Lights", because that song had been featured on a commercial for HBO's program about Mormon polygamy, "Big Love", and I liked the song. But that's about it. I didn't even know what the band looked like until fairly recently. I was surprised at how young they were; their sound is much more mature. There were a couple of instances over the years where I tried to listen to other selections, but they made me want to go back and listen to the familiar, to "Our Love To Admire".
Interpol - then
Then, earlier this summer, my son Aidan told me that Interpol would soon be coming out with a new album, so I decided to check it out. Aidan is in a band, and he has a penchant for the post-punk bands that came out of New York in the last decade like The Strokes. So, to prepare for the review, I decided to download the other five albums that I did not have, including the new one. I haven't been able to stop listening for the last few weeks. This is my kind of music. It should be statistically impossible that a band can have six albums, and every single one of them be this listenable, right? But they are.
The first record, "Turn On the Bright Lights", released in 2002, is clearly a post-punk record with its domination Peter Hook-style bass hooks, pounding snares, and scratchy guitars. Ofttimes, this band turns down to volume and raises the fuzz to sound almost shoegaze on songs like "NYC" and "Hands Away". In fact, there are entire Reddit discussions that debate whether or not this band could be called shoegaze. But, of course, they don't come out of that scene. Although there are shoegaze elements through every single album, this is not a shoegaze band. They emerged in the time period between the shoegaze movement of the '90s and its reemergence in the early 2010s. Their sound is much like Beach Fossils, but without the same genre classification. And that's probably a good thing. Interpol is their own thing. Other good songs include the catchy "PDA", the moody "The New", and "Leif Erickson". Their first record was critically acclaimed, although not many people heard it until later. It took several years to achieve gold status, and the band just completed a 25th anniversary tour for this album.
In 2005, they released their second record, "Antics", which had a more palatable, danceable guitar pop sound as reflected in songs like "Evil", "Narc", and "Not Even Jail". There were also some more expansive songs like "Public Pervert", "Length of Love", and "A Time To Be So Small". The version of the album I downloaded includes a bonus disc that includes dance remixes of several of the songs that are really delightful. Although I really like the album, I would say that "Antics" is their weakest release.
"Our Love to Admire" in 2007 is arguably their most well-known album. Not only is it the one I owned for many years, but, when I talk to people, it seems to be the one that people mention.
Marauder
In 2010, the band came out with an eponymous fourth album, a strong release. It's hard to pinpoint what exactly better about this release. It's less catchy yet more demanding of your attention. It's darker and grittier. It creates a keening and a longing within you from the first song "Success" that continues throughout the whole album and continues with the layered "Memory Serves" with its surging orchestral sound. The best song on here is "Lights" which sees Banks enunciating the stark lyrics with clarity while the music gradually builds to a crescendo, as well as the electronic ambient song "All of the Ways".
"El Pintor" saw another strong album in 2014. Spanish for "the painter", it is also an anagram for the band's name. The album starts with the shoegazey "All the Rage Back Home" and "My Desire", which sounds like a throwback to the band's early days. The record's best song is the heartbreaking and delicious "Everything is Wrong", along with the furious "Breaker 1". The whole album is just really good, and to make things even better, in early 2018, the band released a three-song EP of songs from the "El Pintor" recording sessions, evening out the collection.
At the end of August this year, we saw the release of "Marauder", Interpol's sixth studio recording. Anyone who thinks that time would have dulled the band's creative impulse would be sorely mistaken. The album starts out with Banks singing falsetto on "If You Really Love Nothing", with its accompanying video starring Kristen Stewart. "The Rover", perhaps my favorite song, is an anthem in all its post-punk glory. On songs like "Nysmaw", Banks almost aspects Peter Murphy. I also like "Surveillance" with its delicate conversations between guitars. The whole album really meshes as it takes us on a rollercoaster of sound, verifying that the band are strong songwriters.
The past three weeks have been really nice, rediscovering this band. They are still as relevant and hip as every. It is rare for me to find bands like this, that I can listen to every single album. Perhaps only Silversun Pickups. I would start the music at the first song of the first album and play them through to the final album, taking most of the day, and then start it over. You always hope to find a band like this, and Interpol is one of those bands.
Metric is certainly not a band that is new to me, or this blog. I have been completely enamored with them since their fourth album, "Fantasies" came out a decade ago. I have written reviews about subsequent albums that you can read here and here. They are a band that has long dominated space on my SD card.
So, imagine how happy I was a couple of days ago to learn that Metric had released their seventh studio album, "Art of Doubt".
I have been streaming it in my car ever since. On the way back from the bus stop, after picking up my high school daughter, she listened for a bit. "Is this Metric?" she asked.
"Yes," I answered.
"I knew it!" she exclaimed. "All of their songs sound the same."
And she is right. Over the years, the band has developed what can only be quantified as a "sound". Danceable drumbeats. Infectious guitar riffs. '80s style synthesizers. Emily Haines' chirpy soprano. This band has always taken a proverbial page from Missing Persons.
So, it all sounds the same. So what? This album is so catchy that you don't care that it mirrors other albums. It tastes good. You like it on the first listen. It is palatable, delectable, and saccharine, which makes you forget Haines' sometimes dark lyrics. ("Is this dystopia?") There is an ethereal quality added to this record that could be explained by producer, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, a know aficiando of dream pop, having produced bands such as M83. This shows on songs like the almost "Dressed to Suppress" and "Risk". But never fear - the band remains unapologetically new wave as on songs "Love You Back", "Die Happy", and "Anticipate". My personal favorite songs are the angry "Dark Saturday", the contemplative "Seven Rules", and the centerpiece, "Art of Doubt", which actually rocks pretty damn hard at times.
There are so many hooks on this record that they will grab you with their sharp barbs and never let you go. Definitely check this one out.
I know, I know. I'm late doing this, but I can't revive my blog without letting you know what I think the Best Album of 2017 was - and that distinction belongs to Slowdive for their self-titled 4th album, their first in 22 years.
Last winter, when the album first came out, I sent a couple of clips to my buddy, Steve. He said, "I like it. I've never heard of them." The truth is, I never heard of Slowdive in the '90s, either - not until my renewed interest in the shoegaze movement starting about six years ago.
So why is that? Why had we never heard of them? Both Steve and I prided ourselves on being up on music back then - we were young and hip. I listened to some shoegaze back then like Catherine Wheel and Lush. Why not Slowdive, who has since gone on to be recognized as one of the most influential of the whole genre?
A lot of it has to do with unfortunate timing. First of all, shoegaze never took off in the United States like it did in Great Britain. The fact that I listened to as much as I did from the scene is testament to the fact that my tastes were pretty broad and far-reaching. In the UK, however, the scene exploded like a dazzling firework, everyone was deeply enamored with it, and, just as quickly, everyone turned on it with revulsion. Slowdive's first album, "Just For a Day", was released in late 1991, on the down swing of things. Slowdive, having taken their name from a Siouxsie & the Banshees song, had been around for a while, and their first album was highly anticipated by fans of that style of music. It was met with disappointment and poor reviews. By then, music critics were calling the music of My Bloody Valentine, and other shoegaze acts, bloated, indulgent, bombastic, artsy fartsy - "the scene that celebrates itself", they called it.
Slowdive - then
This really would be an unfair interpretation of Slowdive and their first album. It is effervescent, languid, borrowing all the best elements of Cocteau Twins. My favorite tracks are the opener "Spanish Air" which combines the mesh of guitars and harmonies of Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell into something akin to a Mamas & Papas song, the scintillating "Catch the Breeze", the somber waltz called "Ballad of Sister Sue", and my favorite, "Primal", which builds up to an impalpable wall of sound, a veritable assault of the senses.
There were problems with their sophomore record, "Souvlaki", as well - a lot of it marketing issues made by the record company. For instance, the record company kept delaying its release date in America, and it was almost a year later (1994) from the British release date. They were weeks into their American tour without having the benefit of having an album out. Also, the British press was abandoning shoegaze in favor for its noisier, less-cerebral cousin, Britpop, bands like Suede and Oasis. And yet "Souvlaki" has gradually come to be known as one of the quintessential shoegaze albums, along with MBV's "Loveless". They enlisted the assistance of avant garde composer Brian Eno, who co-wrote and played on a couple of songs, the spacey and trippy "Sing" and "Here She Comes". Other gems include the urgent "Alison", "Machine Gun" with Goswell doing her best Elizabeth Fraser, and shoegaze staples "40 Days" and "When the Sun Hits". The whole record is a masterpiece.
In 1995, they released their third record, "Pygmalion", which was a departure from their earlier sound. It was more experimental and ambient, relying more on electronica, obviously influenced from their time with Brian Eno. It consists of more atmospheric, moody arrangements with minimalistic instrumentation. Forget "Dark Side of the Moon", "Pygmalion" is just as mind-altering and psychedelic, with lengthy explorations of music like "Rutti", "Visions of LA" and "J's Heaven". This is a really great concept album. Three weeks after its release, their record label dropped them.
Over the next twenty years, all of them moved onto separate projects. Some did solo projects, and some went on to form the alt folk band, Mojave 3 on the 4AD label. Halstead formed a musical project, Black Hearted Brother, and Goswell joined members of Mogwai to form Minor Victories (all of whom I will write about in the future). In the interim, the shoegaze movement was reborn and Slowdive was touted as its hero.
So, now we come to 2017, and the band reunites to record "Slowdive", their first record in 22 years, and on an independent label. The result is clear and crisp, a shoegaze album with ecxellent engineering for the new millennium. The band runs through the spectrum - atmospheric dream clouds cushioning the vocals, both male and female, on "Slomo", guitars tuned for maximum fuzz on "Star Roving", one of the main singles, and Halstead answers Goswell's frantic keening with serenity on "Don't Know Why". "Sugar For the Pill" shows the maturity the band has reached by molding dreaminess into awareness, like waking from a deep sleep, and "No Longer Making Time" is my favorite song, with its alternating sweet verses and exploding choruses. I love to see how Goswell, Halstead, and Christian Savill blend their guitars to make soaring landscapes of exquisite noise. "Falling Ashes" is an eight-minute opus, melancholic pianos and wistful voices layered by a soft breeze. Just lovely.
Who knows what is next for the band? But I am happy that they reunited to form this angelic collection of songs that has dominated me for the better part of the last year. I highly recommend this band if you have never heard them.
Say what you will, but Maynard James Keenan is one of the most interesting men in the music industry - one of the most influential if not controversial. Indeed, his brand of art is so prodigious and log-awaited that his fans wait breathlessly for the sporadic albums to come out. In 2015, we saw a new album by Puscifer, one of the best albums of the year, and next year will boast of a new Tool album, the first in 13 years. Fans are going crazy with anticipation. And this year, we were blessed "Eat the Elephant", the spectacular new album by Keenan's supergroup, A Perfect Circle after a long 14-year hiatus.
Ever the eccentric artist, I enjoy watching and reading interviews with Keenan where he describes the creative process in making his music. I have heard many a Tool fan slobber, "Maynard just writes the words! He doesn't have anything to do with the music!" This is said to diminish his contributions, but can you imagine "Aenima" without Keenan's misanthropic rantings? It is true that he gives his fellow Tool members more creative leeway, because those guys are creative juggernauts. Even with his personal project, Puscifer, Keenan knows how to surround himself with creative influence and channels it like a maestro. The same can be said of A Perfect Circle.
Although the band started as the project of Billy Howerdel. With someone as charismatic as Keenan, it is easy to be eclipsed, but there is no denying that this project is Howerdel's baby. Howerdel worked in the '90s as a guitar tech for several huge bands, including Tool. He roomed in Los Angeles for a while with Keenan and was able to personally play the demos of his music for Keenan. The songs were originally written for a female singer, but Keenan observed that he could imagine himself singing these songs. And thus was A Perfect Circle born - a supergroup having included such musicians as Troy Van Leeuwen from Queens of the Stone Age, Paz Lenchantin from Pixies, and Tim Alexander from Primus and Arizona band Major Lingo, also currently including James Iha from Smashing Pumpkins.
I have been a Tool fan since the early '90s, but I remember the first time I heard A Perfect Circle in 2000. "Mer de Noms" became kind of the soundtrack for that year. It had an edge like Tool, but it was more dreamy, more gothic - in other words, my kind of music. There have been two albums since then, but honestly I didn't listen to those much until preparing for this review, and I was missing out. They are all great.
Between albums, Keenan secludes himself in his wine business in the Verde Valley of Arizona (not too far from me). He has aptly said that having something to do with his life other and music gives him fodder for writing music, otherwise life is just being on the road. When his bands - be it Tool or APC - are finished writing their music, they will send their recordings to Keenan, and he will play the music in his truck, looking for inspiration. When it comes, he will wrestle with it until a song emerges.
Keenan has said with "Eat the Elephant", he said that Howerdel sent him a collection of noisy, guitar-driven power pop songs. Keenan sent the recordings back and told Howerdel to strip the songs down to their most basic level - just piano. And that works; that's how they left the album - most of it circling around Keenan's voice and a piano, giving the whole album more of a primal feel. There are a few aggressive moments, but most of the album has the opiate haze of the impetus of a fever dream, the music ebbing and flowing, which makes Keenan's lyrics even more disturbing.
There is a very obvious political slant to this album. It's obvious that Keenan is not a Trump fan. But let me give you a hint - he's not a fan of the Democrats, either. Keenan is very careful to keep his political affiliations out of his interviews, but here, Keenan is evidently critical of both. This album is a dismal portrait of how screwed our society is.
My favorites are the title track, "Eat the Elephant" - whose meaning is perfectly clear. We are all clearly eating the elephant right now. The song starts out with a smoky, jazzy piano and a cymbal. Keenan's voice is almost weeping, and the guitars are fuzzy and pulsating. "Disillusioned" is one of my favorites - the song, a lament against technology, has movements and changes that take you through the proverbial gamut of emotions. Subdued. That is the word that describes this album. And yet it works. "The Contrarian" builds up to a pulsing wash of sound - a shoegaze song if I have ever heard one. "So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish", a bubbly, caustic tribute to Douglas Adams. "Talk Talk" continues Keenan's obsession, a love/ hate relationship with Christianity and has a poignant message for me as a Mormon - try walking like Jesus, instead of just talking the talk.. My favorite is "Hourglass", a catchy electronic song in the vein of Nine Inch Nails. Keenan breaks tradition and croons in his best imitation of Howard Devoto.
All in all, this album is genius. As everything Keenan does. It makes me hunger for the Tool album, sad to think about how long it will be before another release. But I maintain my argument - in mainstream music, no one is more important than Maynard James Keenan.
One winter day in early 1993, I stopped by Graywhale CD on the way home from work, as I was likely to do. Some people go to bars; I went to the record shops. As I browsed through the music selection, I listened to the music drifting over the speakers. I didn't recognize it, but it was sweet and haunting and edgy all at once. I went up to the record store clerk and asked, "What is this playing? It sounds kind of like Throwing Muses."
The clerk looked at me like I was stupid, as record store employees are wont to do and said, "This is Belly."
In spite of my wounded pride, I bought their debut CD "Star" in silence. I was no stranger to the music of Tanya Donelly, after all. I may have been 23 and married, but I had a musical history. I had owned "Chains Changed" on vinyl, the first Throwing Muses release on 4AD, at age 17, when I was the only person I knew who had heard their music. I had seen Throwing Muses open up for New Order in 1989. New Order pushed buttons; Throwing Muses was three girls and one guy, none of them barely over 5 feet, and they rocked the amphitheater. I had met Tanya Donelly at Zia Records in Tempe, Arizona earlier that day.
I took "Star" home and gave it a listen with my wife. Little did I know that this record would become one of my favorite records of all time, but definitely in my Top 10 for the whole decade of the '90s. It seemed to define the '90s.
Tanya Donelly had always been a powerhouse in Throwing Muses. Her stepsister, Kristin Hersh, had always written songs that were angry and ironic, eschewing traditional songwriting, while Donelly had written towering pop songs laden with hooks, as in the song "Not Too Soon". This provided an integral balance to the band.
Belly - then
In 1990, Donelly formed the band The Breeders with Pixies' alumna and fellow New England rocker, Kim Deal. Their debut release, "Pod", was a masterpiece of simple yet driven pop. As the story goes, "Pod" was material written for the band by Deal. The second album was to feature material written by Donelly. For whatever reason, this did not work out, and Donelly left The Breeders, and the material she had written for the second album became the source for Belly's first album.
"Star" was an instant hit. Anyone who was alive and paid attention saw that the singles "Feed the Tree" and "Gepetto" got regular airplay on MTV and alternative radio. But the album - especially in retrospect - was much more than that. It was dark and unsettling at the same time as it was sweet and saccharine. Droney guitar riffs were offset by Donelly's Snow White voice, sounding like music that might be written by the creepy twins in "The Shining". In other words, this album is beautiful, manifested in songs like "Angel", "Dusted", and "Low Red Moon", songs that still get heavy rotation in my collection.
Belly's second effort was a 1995 release called "King". My wife and I loved it. At the end of 1995, we moved off-grid, and this was one of the few CDs we took with us. Not as brooding as "Star", it still contained the same effervescent pop riffs and catchy hooks that the previous album did. It's still one of our favorite records, songs like "Red", "Silverfish", "Super-Connected", and "Now They'll Sleep" still have deep meaning to us, and some of our kids grew up listening to this music. I guess not everyone felt the same way about it. In the epoch of grunge, ironically, Belly was not mainstream enough, and Belly broke up soon after. Not that my wife and I knew. We were in our bubble in the desert and heard nothing about that until years later. In the interim, Donelly has been prolific and has released a whole collection of solo material, but that body of work is unfamiliar to me.
With revival of all things '90s, it was high time that Belly come together again - after all, their sound is again the "in sound". Words can't express how excited I was to find out that a new album was coming. The first thing I did last Friday morning, when I woke up, was the download the new release, "Dove". And I have been listening ever since!
First of all, for people who are expecting "Star", don't get your hopes up. Almost three decades have passed between the first album and the latest album. It has been 23 years since "King". With so much time gone by, of course Donelly will have changes as an artist. She has had a lifetime of experiences since then, and she has always been a very honest artist. Perhaps that is the strength of this band - they refuse to churn out a rehash of the same material. Every album is a different beast, and that is a good thing.
"Dove" shows a tempered Donelly, not quite so angst-driven or moody. The songs here scintillate, showing that she has not diminished as a song-writer. "Mine" starts off the collection with as many hooks as anything she has ever written. Other favorites include the infectious "Shiny One", as well as "Human Child" with a celestial bridge that separates this song from the others. Some of Throwing Muses' strongest points where their occasional forays into country music, and "Artifact" doe's just that with amazing aplomb. My favorite track is "Army of Clay"with its frantic intensity. The album finishes off with an acoustic hidden tack called "Starryeyed" which demonstrates how Donelly uses her vocal range to create a wave of nostalgia. And for a moment, I am swept through the decades since I was 17 years-old and have been on a musical journey with this woman since then. And I am grateful for the ride.
The twenty-three year wait was worth it. This whole album will be with me for a long time. I recommend that you get caught up in this swoon with me as well.
